


a life worth living

by wayslide



Series: a life worth living [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Time Travel, because i do actually kind of want to write fix-it fic, i think i used to be funnier, jaime lives, my sense of humor is maybe fucked up, there are two jaimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:13:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22510795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayslide/pseuds/wayslide
Summary: Inspired by LadyRhiyana'sA War Worth Fighting. Jaime Lannister, time traveler. He prefers it to Kingslayer, at least.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: a life worth living [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628035
Comments: 31
Kudos: 145





	a life worth living

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A War Worth Fighting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18128531) by [LadyRhiyana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana). 



> _room to breathe_ is so relentlessly sad and grief-stricken at the moment that I needed a kind of palate cleaner. I read A War Worth Fighting early in my GOT fanfic journey and this is actually one of the first things I started writing before I got distracted by all my feelings about Brienne and Tyrion after actually watching the series finale.
> 
> Truthfully, I think this fic is just 100% me roasting Jaime using his younger self. The result falls somewhere between _ridiculous crack fic_ and _embarrassingly earnest_ , which seems quite on brand for Ser Jaime Lannister.
> 
> For those of you who just don't want to read [A War Worth Fighting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18128531) first (although I must ask you: why? it's short and sweet and this fic will make SO much more sense if you read that first), Melisandre tries a spell to roll back time and instead accidentally brings 17yo Jaime Lannister, who has just killed his king and is kind of fucked up about it, into the future right as the battle against the undead at Winterfell begins. 
> 
> The original fic implies the Long Night lasts a whole lot longer than one night of beautiful cinematographic storytelling, and I've actually kind of forgotten the actual events of the episode and cannot be fucked to rewatch it just for this. Just assume Jaime showed up at some point mid-battle and the wildings sort of adopt him because why the fuck not and accept that the events that I've written could have happened in some universe.
> 
> Whew! This is a long ass comment. Onwards!

"I bet she can kill a man with just her hands," Tormund said dreamily as he cut through the neck of another wight.

Then, a little while later, bleeding from a head wound and holding a gnashing wight away from his face: "Her thighs alone could probably crush a man's skull."

And again, while running down a hallway of the keep that Jaime kept forgetting to ask about because, despite everything, he wanted to live, if only because as long as he did so he had the chance to do some good with his sword, something to redeem—Jaime didn't want to think about it—and anyway, Tormund was saying contemplatively, "Do you think she's blond like that all over?" 

It was nearly enough to distract Jaime from the wights, except for the snarling that relentlessly followed them. "Is this—" Jaime began to ask the wilding man to his left before he was rudely interrupted when they turned the corner just as a window broke open and wights poured in. All at once they were surrounded, and even Tormund couldn't wax poetically about his lady love's sturdy shoulders or some such nonsense for a good long while.

It wasn't until they'd been granted a reprieve, having found some small pocket the wights had not stumbled upon yet, that Tormund started up again and Jaime remembered his question. 

"Is it quite normal for wilding men to go on like this?" Jaime asked the wilding man from before, who had fortunately managed to survive so far. "I'd expected there would be a lot more action than words."

The man snorted. "I suppose our reputation precedes us in the south," he said, tone dry as sand, but shrugged. "There's a bit of that, there's a bit of this, but Tormund Giantsbane is a romantic in his own way. Most of us wouldn't get so bloody moony about a woman before managing to take her as a wife."

"I am not _moony_ ," Tormund complained. 

One of the two wilding women with them barked out a tired, disbelieving laugh. "Oh please," she said, and then pitched her voice high and fluttered her eyelashes to mock: "So powerful she could take my cock off with a fingernail—"

"All right, that's enough!" Tormund huffed, glaring as they all shook with the effort of holding in their hysterics.

And then the wights were on them again and Jaime forgot everything except the sword in his hand and the enemies in front of him.

When it was over, Tormund and Jaime were still alive. As was Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the—Queensguard?—for _Cersei_ —because this was, apparently, the future. The future, where Daenerys Targaryen had two dragons and an army of tens of thousands and had come back to take the Iron Throne from Cersei, who had cuckolded King Robert Baratheon, who was dead, and had _three children_ with _Jaime_ , who were also all dead; information that the lady Sansa Stark shared in an oddly vicious tone, which made Tyrion, for whatever reason, squint at her with an unreadable look and then look at Jaime with a heartbreaking sort of longing on his scarred face—and weirdly the most upsetting and unbelievable thing was Jon Snow, who was supposedly a bastard of Ned Stark, also dead, who kept looking at the Targaryen girl with soft eyes.

The honorable Ned Stark? Managed to forget his vows long enough to put his cock in a woman that wasn't his wife? And then brought the boy back to raise at Winterfell with his legitimate children? A boy who was, mindbogglingly enough, enamored with the dragon girl whose father Jaime had just killed, the king that he had vowed to protect?

What?

"They like you better than me."

Jaime turned to see—himself. The older Jaime Lannister, the one of this time, the one who always looked tired. Always looked ready for things to come crumbling down. Every line on his face spoke of pain that Jaime himself had yet to know.

Pain, Jaime realized, a slow blooming of emotion filling his chest, that he would never know. Having come here to this time, he had left behind the life he might have had, all the love and grief that the other him carried in his bearing, in his every movement. There was a kind of grieving Jaime would need to do for that, but he had carved a different path for himself the moment he stepped through that portal; he found that he did not regret it, though he felt sad to see Tyrion grown into a man more cynical and scarred than Jaime could have imagined. He had always known the world would do its best to take its pound of flesh from his brother, but he'd hoped he might be able to mitigate the damage. Maybe he had, or _he_ had, and this was the best case scenario: Tyrion, alive, somehow the Hand of a Targaryen queen, estranged and careful with his brother in a way that spoke of fraught history, in the North, survivor of a war against legions of dead men.

Jaime had wished for better, but all his wishes were now smoke in the wind.

He smirked, willing himself to forget his melancholy. "Don't take it to heart, good ser. It's only that, for the moment, they value two good hands more than a single golden one," Jaime said flippantly, and swallowed a chuckle at the other Jaime's thunderstruck expression. 

"I'd forgotten," Old Jaime, as Jaime had come to think of him, said. He seemed to be talking to himself for all he was staring intently at Jaime. "I'd forgotten I—you were like that," he frowned, glancing at Jaime's right hand and absentmindedly rubbing his chin with his left. "I suppose I wouldn't have known in the first place," he muttered, again to himself. He slanted a look at Jaime. "It is strange, to say the least, to be on this side of," he fluttered his hand at Jaime as if to say _all that_.

Jaime could relate. Watching his older self was very revealing: even now, Jaime could see the tension in the older man's shoulders that spoke of discomfort, but for all his head was tilted casually to project disinterest, there was a gleam and a directness in his eyes that spoke to his curiosity about Jaime. Jaime could not even pretend he had the benefit of insider knowledge because the man really was just that easy to read, his every emotion plain on his face and movements; it was very vexing because it meant that he had always been pathetically transparent and he had been kidding himself this whole time thinking he was anything but. It was humbling, which Jaime found he did not like. 

Old Jaime regarded him for a long moment, and then sighed. Jaime had the sudden and disquieting realization that Old Jaime was probably reading him the same way that he was reading _him._

"Come," Old Jaime said. "We've survived the Night King, thanks to Arya Stark. I'll get you a cup of wine. Have you met Brienne?"

"Oh," said Jaime, very intrigued. " _Brienne._ "

Old Jaime wrinkled his brow at him.

Jaime drank his mead. Somewhere in Winterfell the other Jaime Lannister was fucking Brienne of Tarth, the very tall woman knight his wilding friend had talked non-stop about while White Walkers did their level best to annihilate them all; the wilding friend he'd made because he'd walked through a time rift after killing his king himself after everything; the time rift that sent him into the future to fight monsters that last appeared so far back in history that Jaime had thought them myths. Probably he should be more uncomfortable or embarrassed, but everything was already so strange that it almost seemed normal.

It had been too awkward to sit with Tyrion and Podrick after watching Old Jaime follow Brienne out of the hall. It was strangely easier to listen to Tormund wail about how she'd been stolen from right under his nose.

Sandor Clegane looked like he would rather have died during the battle than listen to Tormund speak, but bore it with little grace.

Mid-rant, Tormund managed a smile for Jaime, one that lit his eyes. "You're a decent lad, little lordling," he said, and then heaved himself out of his chair and tottered off to do—something else. Perhaps some _one_ else from the way his gaze roved contemplatively around the room, lingering on the women.

Clegane glared at Jaime then. "Fucking Lannisters," he said after a moment, and went back to his food and wine.

Daenerys and Jon Snow go south with their armies, taking Tyrion with them. Jaime didn't follow them south, and neither did Old Jaime, probably because he'd frozen his balls to the floor in Brienne's room. Jaime hadn't seen him since he'd left the feast hot on Ser Brienne's heels, though he knew that Tyrion spent the time he wasn't with Jaime or with Daenerys with Old Jaime. It was strange that his baby brother was now technically his older brother, but Jaime found that he liked this future Tyrion, though he still regretted that that _his_ Tyrion would grow up without him.

Jaime didn't know what he would do with himself now, but Lady Sansa reluctantly offered him a place at Winterfell while he figured it out. He supposed Lady Sansa could hardly kick him out when her sworn sword had another version of him in her bed, but accepted the offer gratefully. A couple days later, she'd assigned him to training the youngest of those who had expressed interest in learning the sword, which he understood to be some sort of slight until he started and realized that it was a punishment; the girls and boys he'd been assigned to were tireless and mostly Northern, which meant they were the most stubborn group of children that had ever lived and they hounded him day and night about swordplay, and when they weren't doing that, he was worried instead about what they were up to.

It was a surprisingly peaceful existence, and he wondered for a while if he might just stay in the North. It wasn't as if he would be needed anywhere else, seeing as he shouldn't even exist.

Except: weeks later, Jaime woke in the middle of the night, restless. He stared uselessly up at the ceiling of the barracks for a long time, listening to Podrick and the few other soldiers that had stayed behind in Winterfell rustle and snore in their sleep, before he gave up and dressed, went out for a walk, only to see himself mount a horse and ride off and the tall blond lady knight was weeping and…

Jaime was frozen in place. He felt that perhaps he shouldn't be there after all; he had the fleeting and cowardly urge to hide. He was sure he was the last person she would want to see now, but then: she noticed him, and gasped, and it was too late.

He didn't know her. He and the other Jaime were not the same person, and she had some history with him that Jaime frankly had no interest in. Ser Brienne of Tarth, he told himself firmly, was _none_ of his business.

And yet, Jaime found himself stepping fully into the light of the moon, towards her, tentative and careful. It just seemed like the right thing to do, which, he was finding, to his absolute horror, he cared about quite a lot. More than he had known.

So he waited and bore witness to her pain, knowing if he spoke, she might think for a brief moment that _he_ had returned and Jaime didn't want to be the one who put that spark of hope in her eyes, only to see it die out. 

After a long moment, the lady knight squinted at him, and he held out his right hand in response. She looked blankly at it, perplexed, and then looked back at his face. "Golden in hair, not in hand," Jaime said wryly before dropping his hand back down to his side.

Brienne hesitated for a moment before ducking her head to wipe her tears. She was shy and uncertain of him, he could see, and embarrassed to have been witnessed in her grief. "He," Brienne started, then looked down at her feet, her mouth an uneven slash across her face. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and her words measured: "He lost his hand saving my maidenhead from rapers."

She was defending the honor of a man who had just ridden off after bedding her, a high-born lady, without marriage vows for months in favor of the married sister he'd been fucking for decades that was now threatening the stability of the _entire_ seven kingdoms. Jaime couldn't understand her mind: so _what_? What was a hand compared to a heart?

"Well," he said, "I suppose I can rest assured that I will go the rest of my life with two hands."

Her eyes widened, and Jaime panicked, a little: he had thought to lighten the pain his other self had wrought by japing, but he did not know her, not really. What if she started weeping again? 

She inhaled sharply—and to his surprised delight, barked out a laugh.

It made him smile involuntarily, and he stood there, a strange fondness growing for her as she laughed herself to maudlin tears again, and then he held his right hand out to her again. "Come," he said, the gentleness of his voice a surprise to even himself. "If there was ever a time to drink, it is now."

They were deep in their cups by the time Lady Sansa found them.

"I know I should feel sorry for you," Jaime was saying glumly, tongue loosened by drink, "and I do: you have been done a disservice by this whole," he couldn't find the right words, so he just waved his hands in the air to indicate the various and many injustices of the situation, "and you seem unlikely to have done a single thing to have deserved it, but I just found out I am an _idiot_ , which appears to be a state of affairs incurable by time. It is very demo... demons... dem...demoralizing." Ha, he thought triumphantly. 

Brienne listed precariously to the side, one long arm reaching out to him. Suddenly her hand was warm on his upper arm and—ah, it was him who had been slumping and sliding off the bench. How unsightly. Had he spilled any wine on himself? He had, but there was still more in his cup, which was the most important thing because he should drink it. Nobody wanted wine on the floor or on his clothes. Drinking it was practically a public service, and he was a knight, he was honor-bound to drink it. Because...kings. Yes.

"You aren't an idiot," she said, kinder than he or his counterpart deserved.

Jaime slammed his cup down on the table, emptied. "You," he said sternly, "are not drunk enough if you are still making excuses for that old fool."

Her face went tight for a second, and she buried her face in her hands.

Oh gods, this was terrible. Was she crying again? Jaime wanted to cry. If she was crying, he was definitely going to cry. _Please_ , he thought at her helplessly, now unsure what to do with himself, _don't be crying_. His hands hovered towards her, but he had never tried to comfort someone who wasn't Cersei or his baby brother and he didn't know what was allowed, especially with Brienne, especially now.

Brienne peeked at him through her fingers, and a giggle escaped her mouth before she covered it with both hands to muffle it, bending over double to hide her face in her knees.

Mortified, yet oddly pleased, Jaime poured more wine into his cup and resolutely ignored the burning in his cheeks.

"And what, pray tell, is so funny?"

"You're so nice!" she exclaimed. "You're so, so," her brow furrowed, "not him." Brienne squinted at Jaime. "I thought you would be…more terrible. Since you're so," she hesitated, "young."

He sensed there was something she wasn't saying and didn't know how to ask what it was. Instead, he fluttered his lashes at her jokingly and tossed his hair. "Young and beautiful?

Brienne flushed. "Yes," she said reluctantly, which was—embarrassing. It was terrible. Jaime could feel his whole face get hot. He did, strangely, suddenly, keenly feel young at the moment. Her eyes flickered to his face and then away, and he admitted only to himself that he also felt keenly beautiful.

Luckily, this was when Lady Sansa showed up, her eyes narrowed dangerously. "What is this?"

Jaime did fall off the bench this time, because Brienne shot up out of her seat so quickly that she knocked him off balance. Also embarrassing, but at least it meant that he didn't have to look anyone in the face.

In the end, Old Jaime was an idiot and also Jaime was an idiot, but they were idiots that had somehow survived the destruction of the seven kingdoms collapsing upon themselves. Literally, in the case of the Red Keep. Lady Sansa decided to head south and took Brienne and Jaime with her. "I'm not leaving a Lannister unattended in my home," she'd said, which was fair. He'd been spending more time with Brienne lately, and she'd finally given him a coherent, though probably incomplete, overview of all that the Lannisters had done since he'd killed Aerys. Probably the hardest to take in was the news about the Sept of Baelor.

He'd broken his vows to kill Aerys, only for Cersei to use the wildfire. A bitter thing to learn.

Before him, Old Jaime stirred on the pallet that had been found for him and where he'd been convalescing, unconscious, for the last several weeks, tended to by Sam Tarly. The other man's eyes opened slowly, and he looked briefly frightened to see Jaime before he clearly remembered the events that had led to Jaime being in this time at all.

"You're a coward," Jaime told him. "A selfish, hateful coward. Brienne should have let you die of rot. I can't understand why she loves you."

The other Jaime's mouth dropped open, and a kind of hope lit his eyes before the shame and guilt overwhelmed it. "She loves me?"

"Yes," Jaime said. "Unfortunately."

Old Jaime frowned at him. "You…" Something flickered in his eyes and he breathed, wonderingly, "You love her."

"Yes," Jaime said simply. "Don't you?"

"Yes," Old Jaime said quietly, with conviction. "I didn't want to leave her. I just… I had to try."

Jaime's mouth twisted. He didn't understand it. He didn't know how he could become this broken man before him. When he'd sat on the Iron Throne, his king's blood on his sword, he'd thought that was the lowest point in his life and there was nothing left for him. It was disquieting to be proven wrong, to see for himself that rock bottom was further down than he could have imagined.

Old Jaime was watching him, a strangely gentle look on his face. "You will be a better man than I," he said. "You probably already are."

"Well," Jaime said, "I do appreciate you keeping your expectations of me low." He had to bite his lip to contain the laughter that rose in his chest at the older man's outraged expression. He stood then, but not without saying one last thing: "Don't leave her this time."

As he exited the room, Jaime thought he heard a quiet, "I won't."

Outside, Jaime nearly tripped over Tyrion. He stuttered out embarrassed apologies, but Tyrion looked at him thoughtfully and said in a tone that was too casual, "You know, we still need a Lord of Casterly Rock. It can't be our Jaime because he has a truly absurd amount of enemies and everyone thinks he's a traitor, but…you might do."

"I'm not even supposed to exist," Jaime said, bewildered. "What are you going to tell people? 'This is Jaime Lannister, except younger and more handsome. We brought him here with fire magic from the past—'"

"It would be _hilarious_ to tell people that," Tyrion said, delighted. "But that was not my plan at all. I was rather known for frequenting brothels before, ahem, everything. I would just say that you were my baseborn son—"

"You would have been a boy!" Jaime blurted out.

"Eh," Tyrion said, waving a hand.

Jaime stared at him a long while. "I'll think about it," he said eventually, grudgingly, and then was distracted because a pale and upset looking Brienne had appeared at the end of the hall. When she saw Jaime and Tyrion, she froze, her mouth falling open. Then she closed her mouth, and then opened it. Closed it again. Went brilliantly red, and made as to leave before hesitating and turning slowly back toward them.

They moved silently away from the door of the room within which the other Jaime Lannister was resting. She swallowed, and then after another moment of indecision, closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before she was moving towards Jaime, past him, through the door, and she was gone.

Jaime let out the breath he'd been holding, and looked back at Tyrion, only to see his brother watching him.

"Too bad the red priestess is dead," Tyrion said, compassion in his eyes. "Maybe we could have stolen a Brienne of Tarth from another timeline for you."

"That seems deeply unethical," Jaime said, but secretly thought he might not mind that.

Tyrion smiled and took his hand. "I am glad you are here, little brother."

"I am glad you are here as well," Jaime said sincerely, and then grinned. " _Father._ "

"Egads," Tyrion groaned, but he seemed pleased and amused. "Maybe I haven't thought this through."

Jaime laughed. He still didn't know what he would do, but at least he had Tyrion. He had his students in the North, and he had Brienne, as a friend if nothing else. He thought he might be growing on Lady Sansa, and he and Ser Podrick had begun sparring regularly recently. He had Tormund, even though his wilding friend had already left for the New Gift before Jaime had headed south.

It was enough, and there might yet be more to be had. Jaime thought he could sort of imagine the way his life might open up and grow in this strange future. He thought he might even be looking forward to it. It seemed like it might be a life worth living.

"Come, brother," Tyrion said, squeezing his hand. "There is much to be done."

And so there was.


End file.
